Closed trial in Politkovskaya case dashes hopes

The trial of Dmitry
Pavlyuchenkov, a former police lieutenant colonel and a key suspect in the
2006 murder of prominent Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya,
started at Moscow City Court today under presiding Judge Aleksandr Zamashnyuk.

When Pavlyuchenkov was
first
charged, there was hope investigators were making real progress. However,
Politkovskaya's family and colleagues say a deal between the suspect and
investigators at the heart of the trial has not been fulfilled and should be
invalidated. The judge today declined their request and declared all
substantive proceedings in the trial secret, saying journalists will be allowed
only at the reading of Pavlyuchenkov's verdict, scheduled for Friday. Such a
quick, closed trial leaves little hope of full justice being achieved for the
prominent Novaya Gazeta journalist.

Tuesday, on the eve of
the trial, Politkovskaya's adult son, Ilya, and his legal representative Anna
Stavitskaya, along with Novaya Gazeta
Editor-in-Chief Dmitry Muratov and his deputy, Sergey Sokolov, held a press
conference at the offices of the independent news agency Interfax in Moscow,
where they called into question the deal Pavlyuchenkov had made with the
official investigators. According to conditions of the deal, Pavlyuchenkov was
obligated to fully confess his role in the murder and name its mastermind, Novaya Gazeta said. The journalist's
family and colleagues, who have studied the materials of the official
investigation, say Pavlyuchenkov did not fulfill those conditions.

"The period of our
active cooperation with the official investigation has ended; the time for
asking tough questions has come," Sokolov said.

Politkovskaya's
colleagues at Novaya Gazeta, who have
been carrying out their own
journalistic investigation into her murder, believe that Pavlyuchenkov is
the key organizer of the crime, directly receiving instructions from the
mastermind, who is yet to be publicly named. However, the official charges
against Pavlyuchenkov have been downgraded from being the main organizer to
being a mere accomplice in the crime. Pavlyuchenkov has confessed to those
charges.

"Without doubting
Pavlyuchenkov's testimony about the participation of additional members of a
criminal group in the murder--this is confirmed by evidence--we are convinced
that Pavlyuchenkov, in his hopes to avoid a heavy verdict, has tried to play
down his role in the crime," Politkovskaya's adult children, Ilya and Vera,
said in a statement issued on the sixth
anniversary of their mother's murder, on October 7. Pavlyuchenkov, the
statement also said, has tried to "offer the investigation a politically
motivated, unconfirmed by evidence, version of who the mastermind of the crime is."

Pavlyuchenkov has named
the alleged masterminds of Politkovskaya's murder to be Russian exiled tycoon
Boris Berezovsky, along with exiled Chechen separatist leader Akhmed Zakayev. However,
it is well known that the first mention of Berezovsky came when President
Vladimir Putin, shortly after Politkovskaya's murder, publicly accused him of
masterminding the crime. Since then, both the Russian Prosecutor-General's
Office and the Investigative Committee have been trying to prove Berezovsky's
involvement in the slaying, according to news reports and sources close to
the investigation. The legal representatives of Politkovskaya's adult children say
they consider the Berezovsky-Zakayev version to be devoid of evidence.

"We are getting the
impression that law enforcement is unwilling to get to the bottom of the crime
chain, because, apparently, the mastermind is an influential person in the
Russian power hierarchy," Sokolov, who also heads the newspaper's department of
investigations, said.

At the time of the
murder, Pavlyuchenkov was head of Fourth Division of the Surveillance
Department at Moscow's Main Internal Affairs Directorate, the city's main
police force, and in this capacity, he ordered surveillance of the journalist
to ascertain her whereabouts and usual routes. The Fourth Division carries out
surveillance and phone-tapping of suspected criminals. According to Russian
law, such operations are to be carried out only after they are sanctioned by a
court; the surveillance on Politkovskaya was not.

"It became clear that
Pavlyuchenkov, with the participation of his subordinates, made illegal
surveillance into a business," Sokolov told CPJ.

According to his
testimony, Pavlyuchenkov received orders to carry out surveillance on
Politkovskaya from an acquaintance, Chechen crime boss Lom-Ali Gaitukayev, whom
Pavlyuchenkov allegedly feared. Such a version was confirmed by the head of
Politkovskaya's murder investigation, Petros Garibyan. "Pavlyuchenkov of course
knew that he was being set up by an established criminal," Garibyan told the
business daily Kommersant in a November
9 interview. However, Garibyan said, Pavlyuchenkov feared disobeying Gaitukayev.
Gaitukayev, who has been charged with organizing the murder, is serving a prison term in connection to another crime.

Politkovskaya's
colleagues disagree with the official probe's conclusions on Pavlyuchenkov.
They believe that the former police colonel is a key organizer of the murder,
who arranged and carried out the surveillance of the journalist; found and solicited
the participation of the three Chechen brothers, the Makhmudovs,
(who are to be tried separately for their purported involvement in the killing;
they deny the charges); and procured and handed the killers the murder weapon. Not
only that, Politkovskaya's colleagues believe, but Pavlyuchenkov interacted
directly with the mastermind of the murder, receiving both the order and
payment for the crime, and is able to reveal the truth about who sent the
killers to the journalist's doorstep.

According to the
materials of the investigation, Politkovskaya was placed under surveillance in
two periods--in the summer and in the fall of 2006. The first surveillance period
involved a narrow circle of persons, who were paid a daily "wage" of US$150. This,
however, proved ineffective, because Politkovskaya had traveled abroad.

The second period of
surveillance started several weeks before the killing. Here is an excerpt from
the official interrogation of one of Pavlyuchenkov's subordinates: "The
surveillance on her [Politkovskaya] was being carried out by our division [the
Fourth Division] in two shifts: the first one from 8 am to 2 p.m., the second
one - from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. Each shift included no less than two transportation
units, and at least six operatives. Since the surveillance of the given subject
[Politkovskaya] was carried out in two shifts, and by a considerable number of
operatives, I concluded that we were working on an official assignment. ..."

In addition,
Stavitskaya, the family's lawyer, said at Tuesday's press conference that
Pavlyuchenkov's subordinates carried out surveillance of Politkovskaya's
suspected immediate killers (allegedly the Makhmudov brothers) until
immediately before the murder "in order to help them carry out the killing."
Stavitskaya based her conclusions on the materials of the investigation that
she and her clients have studied.

Despite all this, no
one other than Pavlyuchenkov from the Fourth Division of the Surveillance
Department at Moscow's Main Internal Affairs Directorate has been indicted with
involvement in the journalist's killing. They are considered "witnesses in the
case." As for Pavlyuchenkov's bosses, those have not even received
administrative punishment.

Could Pavlyuchenkov
have organized such a massive surveillance operation without the knowledge of
his bosses? "This is a question that arose while we were familiarizing
ourselves with the materials of the official investigation," one of the
Politkovskaya family lawyers told CPJ. "Yet, the investigative team never asked
it of Pavlyuchenkov."

Investigators have not
responded publicly to the allegations raised by Politkovskaya's family, their
lawyers, and colleagues.

The prosecution has
asked that Pavlyuchenkov serve 12 years in a general-regimen prison colony if
found guilty. As a rule, defendants found guilty of a commissioned crime
receive up to 18 years in prison in a maximum-security prison.

With Pavlyuchenkov's blitz
trial being sealed to the public, the truth about the real masterminds of
Politkovskaya's murder may be buried for good. The press is unable to monitor
the trial and help expose any flaws in the proceedings. Such a process is
opaque and bound to sabotage the pursuit of true justice for our colleague.

[Translated from Russian by Nina Ognianova]

Elena Milashina is an award-winning, investigative journalist with Novaya Gazeta and a Moscow correspondent for CPJ.